What does it mean that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not? What does it mean to follow Jesus into this world? What does it mean to be filled, led, empowered by the Spirit of Jesus? Hmmm ...

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Treasure in a field

It's so easy to miss the good stuff.

In this transition time, I find myself at loose ends, especially when it's been raining a lot and I can't drive truck in the beautiful fields of southeastern Minnesota. So, since I am curious about the world and wonder what's out there beyond truck driving and pastoring, I've spent a lot of time the last few rainy days on job boards.

Yesterday the walls were closing in and I needed to get out of the house, so I went to downtown Red Wing to find a coffee shop. Lo and behold, what I found! The largest Caribou store in the chain (the manager explained to me) and a gorgeous old building that used to be a railroad depot, then was a restaurant, and now is an amazing, spacious, two-level beautiful coffee shop with a fireplace and a conference room and dark wood and brick and oh, my goodness.

You never know when you're going to run across a treasure. I rearranged a bit of my day today to come back here and enjoy the ambience. Delightful.

Thing is, I've driven by this Caribou dozens of times. It's a coffee shop. They're all the same, right? Wrong. So wrong. This picture doesn't really do it justice. I mean, you get the whole standard thing with their best coffees -- the Obsidian and the Mahogany and the Starlight all lined up right next to each other on the shelves, and the custom coffee mugs, the apple fritters and espresso beans and chalkboard and leather chairs and all of that. But there's something about the space, the luxurious space, that is just joyous. Welcoming.

It's a treasure. I don't know how to put it better than that.

So what do you do when you find a treasure?

You can walk by, or drive by, and smile and nod. Most of the time we do. Or you can rearrange your schedule, your circumstances, your life, and let yourself be shaped by the encounter.

One of the refrains that regularly haunts my life comes from a poster in a student lounge when I was in college. It said: "The secret of life is this: To be ready at any moment to give up all that you are for the sake of all you may become." That thought is both inspiring and terrifying.

The other day a friend said he was struggling with a question. "When was the last time I did something for the first time?" he wondered. Too often we wear ruts in the soil of our lives and miss so much.

Are you keeping your eyes open for the treasures God puts in your way? Jesus told that story, you might remember -- that the kingdom of God was like a man who found a treasure in a field, and in his joy, he went and sold all that he had in order to buy that field. It's easy just to blip over that story and not take it very seriously. But if you think much about it, it's a very challenging story.

Here's one shot of the Caribou in downtown Red Wing. It doesn't do the experience justice, but you get a little idea. It's worth the trip!